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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29563329">Balance of Force</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/XenoWrites/pseuds/XenoWrites'>XenoWrites</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>BattleTech: MechWarrior, Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends: New Jedi Order Series - Various Authors</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Crossover, F/M, Female Friendship, Fighter Pilots, Friendship, Game of Thrones-esque, Gen, Giant Stompy Robots, Jaina Solo Is Blunt, Jedi, Midi-chlorians (Star Wars), Nobility, Philosophy, The Force Is Weird (Star Wars), The Force is Infectious</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-15 21:54:44</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>4,694</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29563329</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/XenoWrites/pseuds/XenoWrites</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Candace Liao, heir to the Capellan Confederation, is injured during a Mech duel against Davions. A Capellan ASF pilot runs to the unconscious woman, and lays her hands on her. A fluttering, magical sensation flows into Candace, and when she wakes, her injuries are healed, and she can sense strange feelings. </p><p>The pilot, Jaina Solo, explains that this is the Force, a mystical energy field from her home universe. Candace is entranced by the new powers, but swiftly realizes that her Nation is steeped in fear, despair, and rage. She can feel the suffering of her people, in a way she never could before... </p><p>...and the Force is spreading.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Balance of Force</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p><em>If not for the Davions, we might have our peace,</em> Candace Liao thought absently, as that damn <em>Blackjack</em> sent an autocannon shell zipping over her head.  <br/>
<br/>
Through the slowly rising heat in her cockpit, she could hear the unusual <em>boom-crack</em> as the shell hit the cavern wall behind her, detonating its payload and shearing off yet another spray of rock shrapnel. It felt like she’d been fighting for days now, but it couldn’t have been more than an hour since she was separated from her Lance.<br/>
<br/>
Her <em>Vindicator</em>’s fusion engine roared beneath her, and she charged forward as a second autocannon shell struck her BattleMech in the shoulder. Unfortunately for the Davion mechwarrior, his light autocannon did precious little damage, and he’d left himself exposed in the gleaming light of the cavern’s mouth, rather than retreat to a safer range. He probably thought it would be fine, since the <em>Vindicator</em> was more of a long-range fighter, whereas his <em>Blackjack</em> had a battery of five-centimeter medium lasers, far better suited for the tight, almost claustrophobic confines of the cavern that Candace was hidden within.</p><p>Deep in her stomach, Candace felt a howl of savage joy rumbling, tensing in anticipation. The Davion dog had likely believed that he’d cornered her in favorable terrain, chasing her into this cavern. Her jumpjets were of little use underground, her weapons were more suited for long-range fire… if she were piloting a stock <em>Vindicator</em>.</p><p>Candace thundered up the cavern’s sloping incline, and the Davion mechwarrior swung into view as she rounded one last stalagmite. The arrogant bastard was standing completely still, the long tubes of his Class 2 autocannon swinging around to track her, his medium lasers alongside ready to fire… and a haze of heat rising from the visibly sluggish arms. The fool had overheated. If he fired his lasers, he risked driving his Mech into an automatic shutdown, or worse, detonating his own ammunition.</p><p>Beneath the blocky, cumbersome neurohelmet, Candace grinned. Her BattleMech’s left arm raised, like a phantom limb of her own, and she thumbed the toggle for her own, identical medium lasers. Harsh green light flicked out, striking the Davion with impeccable accuracy as his stocky, awkwardly designed BattleMech tried to dodge, jerking left and right as if he could duck the beams.</p><p>Or perhaps it was surprise causing his erratic movement; he likely expected just a single medium laser, and a three-centimeter small laser, rather than <em>four</em> medium lasers, exactly as many as his. Then, as the <em>Blackjack</em> stumbled into a few steps backwards, Candace pressed another button, and two missiles roared out of her <em>Vindicator’s</em> shoulder, locked onto the Davion. Though they were far from slow, they couldn’t match the lasers moving at lightspeed, giving the Davion mechwarrior enough time to twist his Mech’s torso and taking the missiles to the other, undamaged shoulder. His first sensible move of the day.<br/>
<br/>
But unfortunately for the Davion, the missiles erupted not into standard explosions, but into the sticky, burning liquid of Inferno gel.</p><p>With a growing yellow-white blaze crawling across his ‘Mech, the Davion mechwarrior kept turning, putting his back to Candace, exposing his rear armor as he ran, hurrying out of the cavern as fast as he could. The chase had flipped – now he was the prey, and she the hunter.<br/>
<br/>
She couldn’t fire, not while her own lasers were cooling down and her cockpit was flush with sweltering heat, but she charged after him all the same, intent on finishing the job. Her PPC could punch straight through his exposed rear armor, but her heat level was far too high – the downside to an energy-heavy loadout.</p><p>For a brief few moments, the cavern echoed with the stomping footsteps of the two BattleMechs at full sprint, and she burst out of the enormous cavern into the shiny light of a St. Ives noonday sun, her ‘Mech’s left arm raised and her targeting reticle pinned on the <em>Blackjack’s</em> jostling backside.<br/>
<br/>
Her computer chimed obligingly at her, and she fired her medium lasers – but just a <em>hair</em> too late, as the Davion mechwarrior was already twisting around, and the lasers splashed across his already damaged right arm. Armor-plate splintered, and the whole arm fell limp. Two more short-range missiles flared out, one missile flying astray, and the other sending another spray of Inferno gel.<br/>
<br/>
The <em>Blackjack </em>spun around, and for a moment, the howl of joy almost burst out of Candace’s lips as she saw the ruined wreck of armor-plate across the it. Victory was almost hers. She could endure his next salvo, but he couldn’t say the same.<br/>
<br/>
But rather than fire his remaining weapons, the <em>Blackjack</em>’s legs caught fire. For a split second, Candace thought the still-blazing Inferno gel had spread, then the Davion ‘Mech flew upwards, it’s jumpjets carrying it up and out, over the low trees and across the nearby ridgeline.<br/>
<br/>
That building pressure in her gut released, and Candace yelled as she triggered her PPC, trying to finish the kill before the Mech disappeared… to no avail, as the blue particle bolt zipped past the speedy <em>Blackjack</em>, missing entirely. Worse, she saw that the PPC bolt <em>should</em> have hit, if only the Davion hadn’t lurched awkwardly in mid-flight; no doubt compensating for the missing arm.</p><p>The surge of almost <em>scalding</em> heat made her gasp for breath, and the harsh klaxon from her <em>Vindicator</em>’s computer dragged her gaze down to the bright red multi-function display. Her hand left the throttle and slammed the emergency override button, aborting the Mech’s automatic shutdown process.</p><p>The Davion ‘Mech vanished behind the ridge, and her PPC bolt had gone somewhere off into the sky, where she could barely see the whirling shapes of aerospace fighters pulling high-G maneuvers, locked in their own duel in the sky. Her computer helpfully labeled the distant dots as a friendly <em>Thrush</em> fighter from her Capellan Confederation, dueling with not just one, or two, but <em>three</em> heavier Davion fighters. At least she had just <em>one</em> of the Davion Guards to fight.<br/>
<br/>
She gritted her teeth, <em>pushing</em> with her brain as she moved forward, the BattleMech’s myomers moving sluggishly under the heat load. Her heatsinks were churning at full speed, but they would take some time to dissipate the current load. Still, she wasn’t out of options just yet. The <em>Vindicator</em> had its own jumpjets, so she could follow.<br/>
<br/>
Candace didn’t jump immediately, however. It was better to approach the ridgeline before jumping anyway; give the heatsinks more time to work, minimize how long she’d be exposed above the treeline, let the myomers cool down.</p><p>The seconds ticked away, feeling like minutes as she struggled closer, the ‘Mech regaining its fluid movement as the heat dropped. Candace pressed her feet flat, digging with her toes inside the thin cooling-boots, and her <em>Vindicator</em> leapt into the sky, its own jumpjets pushing it right after the Davion.</p><p>Her thumb rested on the trigger for her medium lasers, and her hand <em>itched</em> with the need to finish this Davion off – but as her Mech cleared the ridge, she saw no Davion <em>Blackjack</em> awaiting her. The grassy clearing in the surrounding jungle before her had been stomped flat, with two large indentations where the <em>Blackjack</em> must have landed, but it was entirely empty, and the enormous ‘footprints’ of the 45-ton BattleMech led off into jungle.<br/>
<br/>
Perhaps the Davion wasn’t a fool, Candace conceded, as she tensed her legs and braced for landing, lest she crash. It wasn’t <em>technically</em> necessary, as her <em>Vindicator’s</em> gyro depended entirely on her brain, via the neuro-helmet – but just as the BattleMech transmitted sensations through the neuro-helmet into her brain, so did the opposite. If her brain believed that she was braced for a sudden harsh landing, as if jumping off a small cliff, then the ‘Mech would brace as well.</p><p>The ground rushed up at her, and Candace’s stomach gave a jolt of primal fear. She leaned back in her chair on instinct, and her <em>Vindicator </em>did the same just before its colossal feet slammed into the grass, leg actuators bending like her knees. The entire ‘Mech shuddered from the impact, and the torso swung forward from the leftover momentum, but didn’t topple over.<br/>
<br/>
With a momentary glance to double-check for ambushes, Candace slowly untensed her legs and straightened her ‘Mech back up, then strode off into the tangled depths of the equatorial jungle around her.<br/>
<br/>
Candace hated these kinds of situations; now she had to keep an eye on half a dozen things. The multi-function displays showing her sensor feeds, the jungle through her cockpit in case the Davion had powered down his ‘Mech, the ground beneath her feet as she walked after the <em>Blackjack’s </em>tracks, the tactical display for updates on enemy units around her, and her comms to see <em>if they would start working again, the blasted pieces of garbage!</em></p><p>She still had direct line-of-sight communications via laser-comms, but her tac-net was down, and the leafy canopy prevented her from simply targeting the nearest comm-tower – assuming the Davions hadn’t blown it to scrap. Her general radio still worked, but it would be stupid to broadcast openly on an unencrypted channel, particularly since she was a high value target both as a Company commander and as a Liao of the bloodline.</p><p>Yet… her comm-system <em>was</em> flickering. She glanced at it, and watched as the display showed one friendly Capellan unit within line-of-sight, capable of communicating via laser-comms – then a split-second later, the contact vanished. She watched, and the contact re-appeared again, then vanished again.<br/>
<br/>
As gratifying as it might be, a slap to the display wouldn’t solve anything. Instead, Candace flipped the display over to distance and direction. When the contact re-appeared again, it was eight kilometers away – and <em>above</em> her. It must have been the <em>Thrush</em> aerospace fighter from earlier, Candace realized. Still alive, somehow.</p><p>It must be a militia pilot. Her own unit, the 1<sup>st</sup> St. Ives Lancers, was lucky enough to not have any <em>Thrush</em>es. They were very fast, and decently armed, she recalled from her limited knowledge, but they were criminally under-armored and tended to lose control on re-entry to an atmosphere. Which meant that a mere militia pilot was dueling against the elite Davion Guards flying in superior fighters, and still holding out despite three-to-one odds.<br/>
<br/>
Candace considered calling up to the militia pilot, and bouncing a comm-laser from the <em>Thrush</em> to her Company, but the sensors and comm-system also showed unidentified targets above her. The Davion Guard pilots, no doubt. If Candace called up to the militia pilot, she would be nothing but a distraction.</p><p>Then the sensor display lit up, and the battle above her head lost all importance. Seismic traces, and they were <em>close</em>. Candace stopped dead in her tracks, freezing in place. Seismic sensors could be thrown off by her own BattleMech’s footsteps, and were rough guesses… but if the sensors were right, then the Davion was within mere hundreds of meters – well within short, knife-fighting ranges. Her own PPC could reach out to six kilometers away, her medium lasers to three kilometers.<br/>
<br/>
She waited for a tense second, but the seismic sensor stayed quiet this time. She checked the rest of her sensors. Nothing! The BattleMech’s computer stayed silent, rather than chiming out ‘fusion engine detected’ that signaled a Mech within close range. It must have been a false alarm.</p><p>This pattern continued for long, tense minutes. It took so long that all the built-up heat from weapons fire finally drained out of the cockpit, leaving her covered in sweat and wearing nothing but the usual mechwarrior’s cooling vest and shorts. She was so tense that when her cockpit’s heating system kicked on, it nearly startled her into opening fire on a spur of rock she’d just spotted in the trees.</p><p>It was growing increasingly likely that the Davion had simply fled. The Davion Guards were no cowards, but they weren’t always foolish enough to stick to single-man duels when they could grab a few of their friends to back them up.<br/>
<br/>
In fact, the longer she stayed out here, the worse her dilemma became. Did she keep hunting for a single Davion <em>Blackjack</em>, which was hardly the best design? Or did she turn around, head back towards the defensive lines that her 1<sup>st</sup> St. Ives Lancers had established, and try to link back up? What if the Davion mechwarrior had realized that she was not just a Liao soldier, but an actual <em>Liao</em>, one of the ruling dynasty? If he had, he would have fled as swiftly as possible, to gather a larger force and ensure her death. She could be walking through the jungle hunting a single ‘Mech, and run into a full Lance, or perhaps even a full Company, hunting specifically for her.</p><p>The more minutes passed, the more the tension grew, like a slowly increasing weight in between her shoulder-blades. Perhaps that was just the weight of the bulky neuro-helmet.</p><p>She risked broadcasting her position, and triggered a magnetic resonance scan as she crossed into yet another clearing in the otherwise dense jungle. It would highlight any major chunk of nearby metal, so that even if the <em>Blackjack</em> was hiding with its fusion engine powered down, it would appear… but the system wasn’t perfect. It might spot a ‘BattleMech’ that was actually just a huge lump of unrefined iron in the rocky caverns that dotted St. Ives’s beautiful lands.<br/>
<br/>
When the <em>Blackjack</em> finally appeared, its fusion engine firing up just moments before the mag-res scan spotted it, Candace was relieved for a brief moment. Then, as the computer chimed out with the exact position, she nearly screamed. The Davion was <em>behind her!</em><br/>
<br/>
Four medium lasers slammed into her back, stabbing into the weak rear armor of her <em>Vindicator</em>. The computer’s artificial voice, Bitching Betty, tonelessly warned her of multiple armor breaches. She struggled to turn around, thanking every god in heaven that she hadn’t heard the fatal notification of engine damage, before she heard something even <em>worse</em>.<br/>
<br/>
“<em>Ammunition detonation detected,”</em> Bitching Betty informed her. “<em>Heat level exceeding – heat level critical. Shutdo-”</em></p><p>There was no time to think. No time to panic. No time to even <em>scream</em>. Candace slammed the big red arming switch, then both her hands gripped the ejection handlebar between her legs, and pulled upwards as hard as she possibly could, while the battle-computer listed more damage as her Inferno missiles cooked off, detonating in a chain reaction that would consume her ‘Mech in <em>seconds</em>.</p><p>The cockpit blew open as emergency charges detonated, blasting the canopy out and shattering the armor-plating directly above the seat. Her ass grew a rocket, pinning Candace to the bottom of her seat as the ejection blasted her ten, twenty, thirty meters into the air, and higher still – as high as possible, until it felt like her buttocks and her chair had fused into a single piece of burning nerves, like she could <em>feel</em> the ejection rockets.<br/>
<br/>
But that wasn’t the only pain – her spine was scrunched up like a folded set of pants, her eyes were tearing up from the pressure, and one of her shoulders felt compressed, like something was squishing it.</p><p>The g-forces shoved her head down, pressing her chin to her chest, and she saw the blooming destruction of her prized <em>Vindicator</em> beneath her. Standard BAR-10 armor-plate was dripping off the ‘Mech like <em>liquid</em>, as the Inferno gel from her unfired munitions ignited.</p><p>It wasn’t the usual sudden detonation, like a firework blooming into a flower or a star or some intricate design, annihilating everything in its path – there wasn’t enough leftover Inferno SRM’s to do that. But there <em>were</em> enough that her <em>Vindicator </em>had been blown off its feet, the left arm and torso completely missing, and a gaping hole in the center torso… and the creeping, crawling yellow-orange light of the Inferno gel spreading across the corpse of her BattleMech.</p><p>At two hundred meters, the rocket-fuel trickled off, and the already deploying parachute unfurled. There was a sweet moment of bliss as the g-forces on her body stopped, then a hard <em>yank</em> in the opposite direction, as her downward descent was stopped by the parachute.<br/>
<br/>
Candace watched, almost in a trance from the pain of ejection and the headache from her sudden disconnect, as her BattleMech was eaten alive by its own uncaring weapons.</p><p>Her ejection seat bounced against something – the wind, or maybe the blast-wave – and Candace reached up instinctively, grabbing for the steering handles and control. But as she did, only her right arm raised, and a sharp, grinding pain lanced through her left shoulder.<br/>
<br/>
No matter how hard she tried, how much pain she ignored, tears in her eyes blurring her vision, her left shoulder refused to move. Her seat drifted from side to side, nearly uncontrolled, and it was only through intense, painful effort that Candace guided the parachute away from the jungle trees, and into a clearing where she could safely land.<br/>
<br/>
Her chair slammed into the ground like a sledgehammer, and her spine’s aching was eclipsed instantly by a slicing, tearing, <em>shredding</em> feeling at the top of her left shoulder.<br/>
<br/>
Candace tumbled out of her ejection seat unwillingly, thumping into the dirt of the clearing. Her bulky neurohelmet was difficult to remove with just one hand, but off it came, and there was no longer a 5-kilogram weight on her head, neck, and her injured shoulder. She dropped the helmet with a limp wrist, and reached back to her ejection seat’s emergency supplies. Thankfully, the radio was already making noise – unencrypted, open to all nearby ears including the Davions, but reassuring all the same, for her Company was coming straight for her, and the entire 1st Battalion with it. The Davion <em>Blackjack</em> was no doubt running as fast as possible in the other direction.<br/>
<br/>
Through the pain, Candace dragged herself upright, and started checking her other emergency supplies. The next most important item, her homing beacon, had already activated during the ejection. Her laser pistol was functioning, and she had three standard power packs, for about thirty shots. She dug through the torn packaging of emergency rations, which had burst open with her barely controlled and too fast landing, and pulled the medical kit out.<br/>
<br/>
She only had a few injuries, thankfully: her spine, her eyes, her shoulder. Her spine wasn’t aching so much now that the rapid acceleration was over, but Candace knew she’d be feeling it later. Likewise, her eyes were still tearing up, but both of those things were temporary.</p><p>Her shoulder was the real problem. She couldn’t move it, and even just moving her other arm sent jolts of toe-squeezing, fist-clenching pain through her body. But there were major arteries under the shoulder, and if she had cut one in the ejection, she might bleed out in minutes. She <em>needed</em> to stop the bleeding, or all the recovery teams would find was a corpse.</p><p>But… a shoulder is an awkward place to bandage yourself. Candace pressed a gauze sponge to her shoulder, and it came away red, but she couldn’t wrap a bandage around her dressing, to keep it in place, with just one arm. She was forced to hold it manually, teeth gritting with the sensation, and that meant she had no free arms. If she needed to operate the radio, or God forbid, use her laser pistol, she’d need to let her shoulder bleed out even more.<br/>
<br/>
As if confirming her worst fears, there came a crashing sound in the trees, and Candace’s eyes shot up, terrified, to the surrounding forest. Had she been wrong? Had the Davion <em>Blackjack</em> returned? The 5th Davion Guards were more than just soldiers of her enemy – they were the Bent Sword Brigade, some of the most hated monsters of the Federated Suns to any Capellan.</p><p>Would they try to execute her, an ejected mechwarrior? She’d heard stories of such things, and her own father had shown her BattleRom footage of Davions doing such things… and with the entire 1st Battalion coming for her, perhaps the <em>Blackjack</em> pilot had realized that she was someone <em>important, </em>someone worth killing at all costs, even if it was dishonorable.<br/>
<br/>
It didn’t matter if she had no free hands to fire her laser pistol now. It would do <em>nothing</em> against a BattleMech. Even if she could hit the cockpit canopy, it was still armor-plated alloys that merely <em>looked</em> like glass.<br/>
<br/>
Would the <em>Blackjack</em>’s pilot even shoot her? Would he need to? It was a bad joke among mechwarriors that foot infantry were ‘squishies’, and for a moment all she could think of was a gigantic metal foot pressing down from above.<br/>
<br/>
But that was the blood loss. It was distracting her. Candace wanted to slap herself, to shake her head, but that would simply hurt her… and perhaps the pain would help. She pressed her hand down harder, wrapping her fingers tight against her wounded shoulder, and the pain intensified, shocking her.<br/>
<br/>
The crashing had stopped, Candace realized. She looked up, slowly, and even the slow turning of her head was impossible – the muscles in her neck pulled from the back of her shoulder.<br/>
<br/>
A green and white figure came out of the treeline. Candace let out a sigh of relief as she realized it was a person, not a BattleMech. A Capellan infantryman, perhaps, judging by the uniform. But yet the figure was wearing a neurohelmet, and the shoulder-stripe was <em>blue </em>for aerospace.<br/>
<br/>
The figure rushed towards her, brown hair spilling out as the figure pulled off its neurohelmet, revealing light skin and a woman’s face. She had Occidental features, rather than Asiatic or Slavic, as was so common in the Capellan Confederation. As she came closer, Candace also noticed that she was incredibly short – shorter even than Candace!</p><p>"Aren't you... a little short... to be infantry?" Candace asked, the words coming out in huffs of weak breath, as the woman knelt by her side. Brown eyes scanned her quickly, and locked onto her shoulder.<br/>
<br/>
“Ejection problems?” the woman asked, casting a quick look at the damaged ejection seat to Candace’s left as she grabbed the open medical kit from the ground. “Hang on, this is gonna hurt.”<br/>
<br/>
Candace opened her mouth to ask another question, when the strange woman pulled Candace’s hand off her shoulder, releasing another wave of pain.<br/>
<br/>
“Lucky,” the woman muttered under her breath, staring down at the bloody wreck. “No major arteries, and your shoulder’s still intact. Shoulder blade’s kriffed, but you’re not gonna bleed out, so it could be worse.”<br/>
<br/>
“Bleeding?” Candace gasped, as the woman’s fingers probed around her shoulder, before moving to her upper back.<br/>
<br/>
“Hang on,” the woman said, bending over and looking more closely, her eyes widening as she stared at something on Candace’s back. “Oh, stang.”<br/>
<br/>
“Stop the bleeding,” Candace repeated, more insistent.<br/>
<br/>
“Ignore my last, you’re lucky not to be in two pieces right now,” the woman said, shaking her head. “This isn’t going to be fun. Hold still, or you’re gonna lose the arm.”<br/>
<br/>
“<em>What?”</em> Candace hissed, panic rising in her stomach, but the woman ignored her, and pulled off her gloves.</p><p>The stranger took a deep breath, then looked Candace right in the eyes. She would say some reassurance, something about how the medical team was right behind her, Candace knew. Whoever this stranger was, infantry or pilot, she clearly wasn’t a trained doctor. But Candace was a Liao, daughter of the Chancellor. If she didn’t stress her injuries with movement, she would have the best doctors in the Confederation, perhaps the best in the entire Inner Sphere. She just had to be patient, and hold as still as possible.<br/>
<br/>
“I’m gonna fix it,” the strange woman instead announced, and Candace’s stomach dropped. “Try to not freak out.”<br/>
<br/>
<em>“Fix it-” </em>Candace started to say, before cutting herself off, as the strange woman’s hands started to <em>glow.</em></p><p>Candace Liao stared in stunned, horrified amazement, as wispy rays of light rose from the woman’s hands like steam rising from rice, as she pressed them against Candace’s shoulder. There was no pain as the stranger’s slim hands touched her exposed wound.<br/>
<br/>
“Tendons or ligaments are frayed, not sure which,” the impossible woman said, her conversational tone at odds with her own tight-lipped expression. “Almost cut through. If you move, they might separate, so hold still.”</p><p>Candace locked her legs and torso, like she was bracing for a car crash. Like she was about to take a punch from a BattleMech. But all her comportment and political lessons must have vanished in the ejection, for she could feel her eyes were as wide as dinner plates. She stared at the strange, impossible woman, as she did… <em>something</em> to Candace’s shoulder and upper back.<br/>
<br/>
And as Candace watched, the woman started to slump a little, her shoulders losing their rigidity, her eyelids dropping. She was <em>exhausted. </em>Her uniform was rumpled, and the more Candace looked, the more she realized that this woman couldn’t be an infantrywoman. Her shoulder-stripe was aerospace, which meant that the multi-purpose infantry uniform was actually a <em>mechanic’s</em> uniform.<br/>
<br/>
<em>Dear God</em>, Candace thought to herself numbly, <em>a mechanic is doing surgery on me, with her bare hands. With her bare, <strong>glowing</strong> hands</em>.</p><p>Yet the woman had worn a neurohelmet, sized for aerospace fighters. Was she the <em>Thrush</em> pilot that Candace had spotted earlier? Last Candace had heard, the militia had lost several pilots in a lightning-raid by the Davion Guards that took out a briefing shack on the nearby airbase. Had they thrown this mechanic into the cockpit out of desperation? Had she volunteered?<br/>
<br/>
Who was this woman? Her shoulder held the green bar and brass lines of a Corporal, and her name-patch read “Solo”. Was she truly just a mechanic?<br/>
<br/>
After perhaps a minute of terrifying stillness and no sensation, the mechanic, Solo, pulled her hands back.<br/>
<br/>
“Should hold for now, but don’t move that arm,” Solo told her, turning her knee to the side and sitting down next to Candance. “I’m gonna faint now. Your goons are coming, so try to keep them from killing me, ‘kay?”<br/>
<br/>
Then Solo slumped, and with an enormous yawn, laid down in the dirt, curling up on her side. She looked like she’d gone to sleep.  <br/>
<br/>
Candace stared at the mechanic, and slowly, cautiously looked at her shoulder. The skin was raw, but not torn; bloody, but not bleeding. As she watched, the smallest lingering traces of light faded from her skin, and the numbness vanished, taking the pain with it.<br/>
<br/>
But there was another sensation tugging at Candace now. Like a ringing drone of tinnitus, or the mildest of headaches… and it came from Solo. It felt so strange, but yet so <em>large</em>, so <em>filling</em>. The same feeling, but smaller, came from her right side, and it was far less; both smaller and more distant.<br/>
<br/>
“Captain!” a voice cried out from across the clearing, along with sounds of tree limbs snapping and foliage being brushed aside by metal limbs.<br/>
<br/>
Candace looked to her right, on a gut feeling, and saw nothing but the same jungle. Yet a few moments later, an armored vehicle painted in the green and yellow of her beloved 1st St. Ives Lancers burst through the trees. It’s hatch opened, and infantrymen ran out, expressions of worry and panic common as they hurried over to her, a red-cross marked medic at the head of the pack.<br/>
<br/>
In each and every one of them, Candace could feel that small ringing, that faint smell, that tiniest of sparks – and she could <em>taste</em> their worry. Their love for her, clashing against their fear for what might happen if she died. She could feel the same presence in the <em>Vindicator</em> of her second in command as he carefully pushed into the clearing.<br/>
<br/>
Yet every one of their presences felt like pale shadows before the blazing presence of Solo, unconscious at her side.<br/>
<br/>
Candace’s head ached, and as the stretcher-bearers arrived, her vision went dark, and she slumped in the careful grip of the medic, too exhausted to stay awake any longer.</p><p> </p><p><br/>
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  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>For those interested in this story, or just hanging out, you are welcome to join my Discord server. https://discord.gg/ywMZtJZztK</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
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